Deckbuilder's Challenge XXXVI: Limiter Removal

So every now and then my playgroup has tried to put Yugioh cards into our decks, only for everyone to end up agreeing that it's usually just a giant hasted vanilla creature that wins the game out of nowhere. I feel like this actually carries a few problems by itself:

1) Ambiguity - If R&D's Secret Lair isn't out, you can argue Yugioh monsters should die to Doom Blade/get countered by Force of Will and have to obey Magic rules rather than Yugioh ones.



2) Unreliability - You still have to draw Yugioh cards from the deck or tutor them from outside the game (and thus have to draw the tutor). This basically makes it play like a combo deck that isn't too different from Reanimator or Through the Breach type stuff. The most clever example I saw to circumvent this was a Dragonstorm deck that yes, summoned 3 Blue Eyes White Dragons in one turn.



3) Predictability - From what few similar experiments I've seen, it's almost always a card from the original series - Blue-Eyes White Dragon is a fairly common meme example, but I've seen Thousand Dragon and Exodia (1) (2) (3) - though, to be fair, Exodia is probably one of the most functional and recognizable cards that could be immediately brought to a playgroup without context. I tried it myself once in an Archenemy game part of the team vs. the Archenemy (everyone else on the team agreed beforehand to play group hug to try and rush it out while I ran monoBlack Sidisi, Undead Vizier tutors.) and it was fun, but I'd feel hard pressed to try it again. I wanted to try to demonstrate a 'different' side of Yugioh that felt distinctly like a chunk of it was being played within the context of a Magic game.

I ended up hitting upon a deck idea I'd considered for quite a while but really hadn't been able to use because of one of the above three points (usually 1 outside of the group, and 2 inside it - turns out being very literal about the rules of Magic makes it possible but incredibly hard to sneak in non-Magic cards from outside the game without getting destroyed first due to the massive combo telegraph.) - Yugioh's Xyz monsters. Xyz monsters can be Xyz summoned from the Extra Deck (which is a separate 15 card deck separate from our main deck...just like a sideboard. ) by stacking the monsters of the required level(s) (written on the card) under it. Those monsters under it become Xyz Material that is usually sent to the Graveyard to pay for ability costs. Think of it like loading a firearm with ammunition, where the firearm is the Xyz monster and the ammunition is the materials used to make it. This inspired me to fire up Yugioh's equvalent of Scryfall and do some searching for an interesting Xyz monster that would fit - most of them were either rather plain direct-attackers/searchers that didn't cleanly address being blown out by simple removal or prison (Baby Tiragon) or archetype-specific/niche supports that I couldn't see working in the context of Magic without a lot more Yugioh cards (Number 78: Number Archive).




Usually, Xyz monsters demand that you use Monsters of a certain matching level to summon them, and as it turns out, it is technically possible to give Magic cards levels via Level Up! As someone who's never made a proper Level Up deck, this seemed like a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and try to make something interesting.

The result is a seemingly subpar (relative to other card choices) midrange Collected Company deck that aims to resolve two Level Up creatures as fast as possible and place one Level counter on them to make them Level 1, allowing us to Xyz summon a level 1 monster out of nowhere that is much much more powerful and capable of much more effectively threatening to interfere with the opponent's gameplan if not outright win the game.



This admittedly takes the following liberty that monsters and creatures would more likely mutually abide by the rules of Magic unless R&D's Secret Lair enforces Yugioh rules and timings. The most important benefit here is that it turns Lyrilusc - Prom Thrush's effect into instant speed*, allowing it become a slow Force of Will-type effect to make up for the incurred card disadvantage - the more hits we get off CoCo, the more spells we can essentially stock up to counter via leveled up creatures being turned into fodder for it. Once we've got our Prom Thrush out, we can either play a heavy defensive political role by bargaining with our opponents over what spells to resolve while we hold its countering effect over their heads, or an aggressive lockdown role that involves us filling in the gaps our protective cards like Voice of Resurgence and Deputy of Detention can't to help us resolve and level up more Level-Up creatures to either overwhelm the opponent with regular Magic creature value or more Lyriluscs to better control when they play spells.

*This ironically makes the usual playgroup tactic of using R&D's Secret Lair to protect Yugioh Monsters via enforcing Yugioh rules and typing weaken this deck a bit as Yugioh abilities are Sorcery speed by default (and thus would brick Prom Thrush.)



If we suspect our opponent is out to brick Lyrilusc - Prom Thrush via the above mentioned method or just by forcing enough spells past it, we can instead try to Xyz summon Lyrilusc - Assembled Nightingale, a card that can attack directly while protecting itself from destruction via battle or card effects (effectively granting it Indestructible). The Xyz monster we choose essentially depends on what we can figure out about our opponent's deck - if they're running exile-based removal and counterspells, we may be more interested in Prom Thrush, where if they're aiming to cast multiple spells a turn and brute force past a few counterspells, we may be more interested in immediately closing the game out via Assembled Nightingale.

One last benefit of using two cards of the same archetype is that they can support each other to boost ATK or protect each other during combat (albeit at the cost of an Xyz material), allowing us to overwhelm opponents who might have the same idea in a format like this (like Daij_Djan's possible use of Ooguchi). We also avoid mixing our Yugioh cards and Magic cards together due to the Xyz monsters residing in the sideboard/Extra Deck, allowing for more organized play and a better surprise.

- Since BinaryBolas pointed out the challenge technically says nothing about multiple cards from another game being legal, I figured it was as good a chance as any to give this deck some flexibility. For a stricter interpretation of the challenge Assembled Nightingale would make the deck more aggressive while Prom Thrush would make it more defensive and political.

- Is this a bonkers overpowered deck? Probably not. It might sound/look scary but you need to still get 2 Level-up creatures out and have them both at Level 1, which is a lot of mana for two creatures that probably won't do much of anything for the first few turns and are still likely vulnerable to even a Shock in that phase. In the event it does work though it can be an interesting surprise in a silver border game that draws a lot of removal while it attempts to clean house or one that acts as an interesting source of free but fair counterspells that require a lot of creature and mana investment.